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Maybe I got carried away at the end of the working day - apologies! It's not as if I expected any better from Paramount.

On a serious note, I do wish that more resources could be spent making audiences of today better acquainted with black & white, rather than pouring God knows how many millions into changing the original material.

I could care less either way. If Its a Wonderful Life sells great in a colorized version, then hopefully they could use that money to release the thousands of unavailable films. I mean, von Trier funds his films with porn.

Barry Sandrew wrote:Legend is having it's best colorization year to date partially due to the excellent reviews and hugely successful Holiday consumer response to It's A Wonderful Life, Collector's Edition which we produced for Paramount last year.

Cancer has had its best year ever, killing more people than ever before!

I don't like the idea of colorization either, and I wish that it weren't part of Legend's business model. If that's how they're making money to fund their work on other projects though, so be it. As far as I know, they haven't released "colorized only" versions of anything. Either way, when industry folks like Mr. Sandrew are brave enough to come in here and share a little info with us, the least we can do is treat them with some decorum.

Some movies in there I just forgot about. What about 1492? I guess Paramount is saving 1492, The African Queen and Looking For Mr. Goodbar. How stupid would it look for them anyway to license off a gorgeous looking Ridley Scott epic film and 2 wonderful American classics. I'd just like for them to work on DVD editions of these.

criterion_disc_101 wrote:Some movies in there I just forgot about. What about 1492? I guess Paramount is saving 1492, The African Queen and Looking For Mr. Goodbar. How stupid would it look for them anyway to license off a gorgeous looking Ridley Scott epic film and 2 wonderful American classics. I'd just like for them to work on DVD editions of these.

I probably shouldn't have even mentioned Looking for Mr. Goodbar in this thread, as Paramount will surely keep it (and those other two you mention) to themselves, given the pedigree of all three. I don't know what's holding up 1492 and Goodbar, but The African Queen makes sense, given the poor state of the original elements.

Another interesting film that Legend could try to license would be Cy Endfield's, The Sands of the Kalahari.

Thanks to a member tip in the Demy thread, we know that Legend has a few more titles up their sleeve. If you go to their website and click "Studio Films" from the menu on the left side of the screen, you can see all(?) of their upcoming Paramount films, complete with art and descriptions.

Most notably, of course, is Demy's The Pied Piper. Other titles I hadn't heard mentioned yet are Phil Karlson's final film, Framed; Hurricane with Max von Sydow; Martin & Lewis in the Damon Runyon adaptation Money from Home; and Michael Winner's magnum opus Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood.

Early reviews indicate that Legend is issuing very solid transfers in the original aspect ratio, and a few discs have trailers.

More Paramount goodies, courtesy of Legend Films.

Lino wrote:More Paramount goodies, courtesy of Legend Films.

Boy! Even that editor's note didn't prepare for just how awful that cover for Rhubarb is! It looks like a music video for a hip-hop artist's pet cat.

Nevertheless, more Hammer movies is always a good thing (though it's puzzling that the cover for that film didn't say so explicitly -- only the vague "from the producers of Curse of Frankenstein").

I got couple of the Paramount titles direct from the Legend Films site recently -- Z.P.G. and Hurricane. (getting my fix in for unseen Oliver Reed and Mia Farrow films, respectively) Thankfully the transfers aren't terrible -- probably the same as what a low budget Paramount DVD release probably would have looked like.

Hurricane isn't as bad as it's been made out to be. The dialogue is corny as hell for sure, but the theme of 1920's American imperialism kept me awake until the goofy storm hits. Mad von Sydow is great as always, even with such a tiny part. Overall it definitely has a strange vibe, considering all the high-powered talent behind the camera -- Troell, Nykvist, Rota, O'Steen, etc. The box says 1:78 widescreen, but it looks more like 2:35 to me.

Z.P.G. is a real relic -- the production values are pretty embarrassing as expected, but Reed and Geraldine Chaplin make it watchable. It's interesting to see for where Children of Men might have got part of its ending -- the man, woman and a baby in a boat, escaping through an underground sewer (complete with pulling through a broken grill) out into the ocean, with a buoy floating nearby. Cuaron mentioned in an interview that he tracked down and watched a Japanese laserdisc before starting his film -- maybe he thought Z.P.G. would never see the light of day on DVD?

Looking forward to Phase IV and Daniel next!

DVD Savant reviews Serial. Had no idea what this title was before now; it looks like fine trash.

Cronenfly wrote:DVD Savant reviews Serial. Had no idea what this title was before now; it looks like fine trash.

Based on how he doesn't seem to get the joke of the movie, I don't think Savant should seek out Mull's excellent the History of White People in America HBO specials.

I remember enjoying Serial quite a bit back when I was and undergrad with cable TV for the first time (circa 1982 - 3). I'm not quite sure that it would completely hold up to the distance from the 70's social phenomena that it lampoons. Still should be fun if you like Mull's sense of humor.

davidhare wrote:After being missing in action for decades, Mandingo is slated for June 3!!

You can order it direct from Legend's site if you don't want to wait. I've got it -- it looks pretty good. Have never seen it before -- whoa! This ain't your mama's Gone with the fucking Wind!

Galen Young wrote:

davidhare wrote:After being missing in action for decades, Mandingo is slated for June 3!!

You can order it direct from Legend's site if you don't want to wait. I've got it -- it looks pretty good. Have never seen it before -- whoa! This ain't your mama's Gone with the fucking Wind!

Is the artwork as bad/boring in person as it looks in the pictures? How's the transfer? It's the only Legend title I'm interested in.

luridedith wrote:Is the artwork as bad/boring in person as it looks in the pictures?

Amateur, yes, but then I didn't buy it for the cover.

luridedith wrote:How's the transfer?

Having never seen it before, I don't have anything to base a judgment against, but it looks fine to me. Not Criterion quality obviously, but they transfered a decent print. Bright, clean, sharp colors -- considering the beautifully decayed and dingy look of the production design.

Savant reviews Baby It's You.

Cronenfly wrote:Savant reviews Baby It's You.

Hrm. It's a shame that he couldn't clarify if any of the music cues had been changed/altered.

Related article in videobusiness.com

ZPG is, officially, the most bizarre movie I've ever seen that wasn't directed by David Lynch. Living robot baby dolls, spaceships that fly in orbit playing music box lullabies and Christmas carols, A "history of the 1970's" Museum, inexplicable passages of utter silence, public executions via trapping someone in a dome...and spray painting it pink (seriously, how does that do anything but inconvenience you? Let alone kill you?), and Oliver Reed's oddly stiff face. All without one lick of logical explanation behind them. I was completely and utterly baffled from minute one of this movie, and yet I was also endlessly intrigued. Could it possibly get any more senselessly weird? And it did, moment after moment. I may well never forget Diane Cilento screaming "BABY! BABY! BABY!" for literally minutes on end while flailing as if being thrown by King Kong. I'll never understand it, but I'll ponder it forever, I'm sure.

This is either a disastrous Frankenstein's monster of a screenplay, or a strong, clear, and utterly masterful vision of weirdness as art. You have to see this movie. It's just...awesome.

Tim Lucas praises The Pied Piper, and the transfers as a whole.

Apropos of nothing, allow me to put in a word for The Busy Body, which I've always thought was friggin' hilarious, contrary to the popular wisdom. Now, where's that DVD of the other William Castle/Ben Starr/Sid Caesar comedy, The Spirit Is Willing?

I'm still waiting for the 1942 Pied Piper starring Monty Wooley to come out it's the only best picture nominee from the 1940's I still have to see.

CSM126 wrote:ZPG is, officially, the most bizarre movie I've ever seen that wasn't directed by David Lynch.

As much as I'd like for ZPG to be some kind of lost surrealist masterpiece, I had a different response. I found it fairly routine, only slightly weirder than similar films like Soylent Green, A Boy and His Dog and even Logan's Run. It's nowhere near as weird as Zardoz.

All without one lick of logical explanation behind them.

Actually, I think most of the weird stuff you mention is motivated by the ecological dystopic milieu. "Music box lullabies" are to pacify the populous, keep them from becoming hysterical in the heavily polluted environment. Likewise, they spray paint the extermination chamber so people don't get upset while watching their neighbors suffocate. But of course, the real reason is so no one can see the couple make their escape at the end.

Same with the "history of the 1970s" stuff - it seems to be in there as a plot device, but also as a kind of SF psych-out for audiences - you think they're at home, but the camera pulls out and you realize you're in a museum. They like that trick so much, I think they do it twice. The museum is a quaint, unsubtle way of emphasizing the differences between the present and the speculative future.

And of course the robot babies have an obvious, heavy-handed narrative function - especially taking into account the "food lines" of people waiting years (!) for one.

This is either a disastrous Frankenstein's monster of a screenplay, or a strong, clear, and utterly masterful vision of weirdness as art.

I guess I'm going to have to fall somewhere in the middle. Well worth watching for genre fans - especially if you like this particular period of SF - but it's no classic. Funny to see how Cuaron ripped off the ending for Children of Men, though.